US Family Detention Centers Not ‘Like Summer Camp’

The Karnes immigration detention center in Karnes City, Texas (left), used by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain migrant families, and (right) a child plays in a lake during summer camp.

On Tuesday, Matthew Albence, acting deputy director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told the Senate Judiciary Committee that ICE’s family detention centers are “like a summer camp.”

I’ve visited those family immigration detention centers. I’ve also volunteered as a counselor at an actual summer camp every year since I was a student. Let me tell you: there’s no comparison.

Let’s start with the obvious: at the summer camp where I work, we swim in a lake every day, run scavenger hunts and other fun activities, and tell stories over campfires. Some campers are anxious when they arrive, but almost all leave talking excitedly about coming back the next year.

The families in immigration detention centers are locked in. They’re assigned numbers and answer at roll calls throughout the day. Guards shout orders, and sometimes verbally abuse detainees. Detained families don’t really know when they’ll be let out. In principle, they shouldn’t be held more than 20 days, but that limit isn’t always respected.

Albence isn’t talking about the cages or the freezing holding cells where parents and kids are held after they’re detained by the Border Patrol.